been slacking again, sorry. Actually, writing this blog is a bit like writing letters. I always seem to open with an apology for being such a crappy correspondent. I lost touch with so many people from back home (England) because of my inability to send letters. Not write them, I was always pretty good at that. But for some reason the actual process of putting a letter in an envelope, adressing the envelope, affixing a stamp, and putting it in the post box has always presented me with a problem. I just can't do it. I still find letters I wrote years ago and never sent. I have a CD of wedding pictures and a set of Mickey Mouse ears I still don't seem to be able to put in a box and send to a friend. My drafts folder has emails that have been languishing for years, as does this blog.

And the excuse I use is I'm too busy. I get distracted, and have to save what I was doing, and then never get back to it. I started writing a blog about a wierd dream I had a couple weeks ago, got interrupted half-way through, and when I came back to it decided that you guys really don't want to know about some of my dreams. I don't remember them very often, but when I do I worry about myself. But I still have the half-finished blog, as a testament to how busy I am and so I can say 'look, I really do do a lot of things and I'm always busy and life gets in the way of my life. . . ' and so on and so forth.

It's all bollocks. Yes, I'm busy, but I still waste time. I'm especially conscious of it right now, what with the panto opening in a week and a novel to finsh (the first draft) by the end of the year, and working 40 hours a week and a bar habit to maintain. But with all that going on, I look at the way I spend my time and think to myself I could be doing more. Did I need to spend an hour on digg, going through the latest user-submitted news stories? I mean, at the end of the day digg seems to be one big circle jerk, 'I-digg-your-story-so-you-digg-mine-even-if-it's-a-picture-of-a-fricking-squirrel-in-a-jello-mould' situation, and there seem to be fewer and fewer decent articles woven in with the fluff. So take off my digg time, that's an extra 45 minutes to an hour. Then there's. . .let's just say 'other internet activities.' There's another hour. Reading books I've already read? I probably spend a couple of hours a week doing that, but I don't think it'll stop any time soon. Which reminds me, must get Good Omens back- lent it out again, and I really don't want to buy a sixth copy.

So there's a chance of getting an extra twoish hours a day to get more stuff done. The two hours I always lament for and wish that the day was 26 hours instead of 24 hours long. I could use them to write (incidentally, the book's up to 54k words, and I got my 20k for October). I could use them to take more photographs, something I always feel like doing and always claim 'I'm too busy' for. Hell, I could actually go through the huge box of paperwork that's lurking beside my bed. I could organize my life.

I'd say I'm going to start to use those two hours a day better, but I'm too busy-- wait, hear me out. This time it's a legitimate claim. Snow White opens in a week, and as always there's a tonne to do. But as soon as the panto is done. . .no that won't work, because then we go dark and I work days and that always messes with my body clock. So around mid-December I'm going to make a concerted effort. . .bugger, they've added shows cos of Christmas and New Years. . .

Nope, enough. Here's the deal. I'm giving myself until after Snow White, and then I'm really going to pull my thumb out me arse, focus on what needs doing, and make myself even busier than I am now, and at the same time stop using it as an excuse.